


Beating Wings

by Omorka



Category: The Incredibles (2004)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-22
Updated: 2009-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-04 23:36:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omorka/pseuds/Omorka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dash goes on a field trip and realizes that living fast may not be all it's cracked up to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beating Wings

**Author's Note:**

> Minor spoilers for the film. Originally written for the second round of the Story Lottery at LJ.

The rubber-and-old-vinyl smell of the schoolbus permeated their clothes as thirty sixth-graders climbed off, clutching backpacks, lunchboxes, and cameras as they milled around. Coach Gorse, the gym teacher, counted as they clambered off the stairs. "Nobody go anywhere," he grumbled in Dash's general direction, ticking off the last few kids on his fingers.

"Like there's anywhere to go," sneered Cory, shrugging his pack further up on his shoulders.

"It's not that bad," Dashiell pointed out. "I mean, yeah, it's a school field trip, but at least we're not at the zoo or something dumb like that again."

"Maybe you're enough of a city kid that a nature preserve is new and unusual," Cory complained, "but I can see stuff like this in my back yard."

Dash thought about pointing out that he lived in the suburbs, same as his friend, but the old instincts for not being too specific about where he lived were still strong enough to discourage him. The National Supers Agency had been nicer about relocating them since the Syndrome incident, and he'd been at this school for two years now. He really didn't want to screw it up. Besides, while Cory was kind of a whiner, he was intelligent and liked comic books, and it wasn't like Dash had enough friends that he could afford to argue with one about a stupid school field trip.

Coach Gorse blew the whistle, and everyone scrambled to line up. still chattering. Ms. Lorrie, their homeroom teacher, joined him at the head of the line. "Now, class," she began, but she was promptly interrupted by Coach's shout of "Listen up!" The line fell silent.

"Now, class," Ms. Lorrie started again, "remember that the plan is for you to spend an hour studying the biology here. Use your cameras to record any interesting life-forms you see, especially ones you're not familiar with. Take notes on everything you photograph, because next week we'll have the photos developed, and you'll use them and your notes to make your six weeks science presentation. You'll probably find it easier if you work in pairs - one to take photos while the other takes notes, and then you can switch. We'll meet back at the visitor's center for lunch." She pointed at the building behind them, an architectural hodgepodge of rustic exposed wood and modern glass. "Don't go too far from the main group, and don't leave the nature preserve. Does everyone understand?"

"Yes, Ms. Lorrie," thirty sixth-graders chorused in unison. They all sounded bored already.

"If you have any problems, come find me _immediately_," commanded Coach Gorse. "Now, on your marks, ready, go!" He blew the whistle again, and the kids meandered off in an amorphous clump.

Dash drifted off towards the creek that wound across the eastern half of the property. Most of the kids would be looking in the woods for squirrels and chipmunks for their projects. He wanted to do something different; maybe he could sneak up on a turtle or a fish.

Cory waved at him. "I'm gonna break off on my own, okay? I wanna find a lizard or a snake." He pointed towards the tall grass between the creek and the woods.

"Sure. See you at lunch." Dash edged towards the water's edge, where a grove of willows shaded the bank.

He got lucky right away. Four turtles were sunning themselves on a fallen branch right at the water's edge. Glancing around to make sure no one could see, he cheated and zoomed up to catch them before they could react; he snapped the shutter twice before the largest one slipped into the water.

"Bingo," he chuckled as they swam off. He caught a couple of them on film as they paddled away, although those shots might end up blurry.

Now he had fifty-eight minutes to kill. He poked through the brush at the creek's edge and startled a few frogs, snapping a couple of photos of them as they dove for the water. He didn't see any fish, at least not that he could get a clear shot of, but he stumbled over some tadpoles in a side pool. He got mud all over his sneakers - Mom was going to have a fit - but the close-up of the tadpole with its back legs half grown in was worth it. He could talk about metamorphosis in his science paper; he'd get an A on this project for sure.

Then the bug landed on him, and he forgot all about the frogs. It was probably just as well; he was almost out of film already. He snatched it with one hand - cheating again, but no one was watching and he didn't care. It looked like a dragonfly, but its body was delicate, almost needle-like, with gauzy wings that it held straight up. It didn't struggle when he caught it.

He resisted the urge to zip back to the busses under cover of the grass. Instead, he found the path that led to the bridge over the creek and made his way back up to the visitor's center the slow way.

The ranger for the nature preserve - really, just a volunteer, but she was dressed like a park ranger - was standing outside, talking to two of the girls in the class about a mushroom they'd found. He waited impatiently, fidgeting until they were done and the two girls headed for the bathroom to wash their hands - the mushroom must have been poisonous. He approached carefully, head up. "Hey," he started casually, "can you tell me what kind of dragonfly this is?"

The ranger bent over his hand as he opened it. The insect flicked its wings twice, but stayed where it was. She smiled. "That's not a dragonfly, although they _are_ related. That's a mayfly."

"Oh," he said, nodding. The mayfly crawled up his thumb. "What's the difference?"

"Well," she said, in that too-soft, too-slow voice too many grown-ups used when talking to kids, "they're both aquatic when they're nymphs - that means not mature yet. But when they molt their skins and grow into their adult forms, dragonflies are bigger, and they hold their wings horizontally instead of vertically." He nodded; he'd noticed that already. She continued, "And dragonflies can live for a while. A mayfly only lives for about a day; it can't eat as an adult, so it looks for a mate and then it dies."

"Only a day?" Dash stared at the insect on his thumb. Flicking its wings again, and then vibrating them too fast for him to see, it flew off, back towards the creek.

\---

"So how was your day?" his mother asked from the kitchen as he trudged in. He kicked off his muddy shoes before she saw them, and zipped them to his room. "Fine," he called from the living room, pulling a worksheet from his backpack and flopping onto the sofa.

"Today was the field trip, right?" The smell of spaghetti sauce wafted from the kitchen. "How did that go?"

He rummaged around for a pencil. "Pretty good. I got some photos of turtles, frogs, and tadpoles, so I think I'm okay for my report next week." The worksheet had gotten bent up in his backpack; he flattened it against the table. "And I caught a mayfly."

"Really?" She poked her head through the door. "You didn't bring it home, did you?"

"No, mom," he sighed, rolling his eyes. "I let it go. The park ranger said it only lived for a day, and I didn't want it to die on me."

She smiled. "That's right. Good thinking, Dash." Her head disappeared back into the kitchen. "Dinner will be ready in about half an hour; work on your homework, and maybe we can watch a movie afterwards."

"Where's Violet? I might need some help," he called back. "It's math for this weekend."

"The band's playing at a football game in Littleton tonight, remember? She won't be home until about eleven." Violet had taken up the clarinet, and wasn't too bad at it. Dash wasn't impressed with the marching part, but the music was interesting and they got into the high school football home games for free, so overall he figured it was a positive thing.

"Okay, I'll see what I can do on my own." He wasn't actually worried about the front side of the worksheet - it was the word problems on the back that he had trouble with.

He'd gotten all but two by the time his mom called him and Jack-Jack to dinner. Dad was on a "special assignment" again; Mom hated that they usually called him and not her, but he'd always had a higher profile. Jack-Jack spent most of the meal babbling about something he'd seen on television - a puppet, it sounded like, although Jack hadn't gotten the knack of making sense yet - and Mom spent most of her time trying to figure out which TV show he was talking about. Dash found himself chasing the last meatball around the plate, thinking about flickering wings and ticking clocks.

"What's up, sport?" his mother asked suddenly. "You're awfully quiet."

"I was just thinking," he started slowly, "how awful it would be to only have one day to learn about everything. It seems like so much would just pass you by."

"I'm sure it's fine, for a mayfly," she shrugged, reaching across the table to pat him on the back reassuringly. "It's not like they're very smart to begin with. They don't know they're going to die."

"I know," he sighed. "It's just - I mean, they're so fast. And they can't eat, the ranger said. Maybe they don't die from starvation. Maybe they die because they use up all their energy and burn out."

His mother's hand hesitated. "Dash, are you worried about that?"

"No, I mean, I know my speed doesn't work like that. But it was - I don't know, I guess it just made me sad." He was hovering at the edge of an idea, like a water-bug on the surface of the creek. Or him, when he was going fast enough.

Mom looked at him with concerned eyes. "How's the homework going?"

"I'm almost done," he sighed. "Two more problems. I know how to do the division, I just couldn't figure out how to set them up."

"Let's work on those," she said, clearing the table and shoving the dirty dishes into the sink without looking, "and then how about that movie?"

"Sure," he agreed, hopping down from his chair. But something was still bugging him.

\---

"I just need you to cover for me for half an hour," Dash pleased with his sister.

"I'm not going to run interference for you with Mom," she shook her head. "But if she asks, I'll tell her you said you were walking over to Cory's."

"Thanks," he grinned.

She frowned at him. "Just be careful. I mean, I still don't think it's a coincidence that you and I have 'hiding' powers, but you're not going to be able to hide from Mom if she comes looking for you."

"This'll only take a minute," he assured her, putting on his mask, and then he was off.

It took less than two minutes for him to get back to the nature preserve - it really wasn't that far out of town. He stuck to the trails this time; even if he was going fast enough to be no more than a blur, a wake of swishing grass would give him away.

The place was deserted, anyway. Well, no, that wasn't right; there weren't any _people_ there. All the life that they'd been photographing yesterday was still there, buzzing and peeping and chirping.

He took a lap around the hiking trail to warm up, and then traced out a more complicated route, with a few twists and turns to keep it from being too easy. Once, twice, three times, the wind pushing his hair around and reddening his cheeks. Turn, twist, dodge. Birds and bugs flashed past him; he ducked to avoid hitting them, their vibrating wings humming in the air as he passed them like they were standing still.

He wasn't sure what he was pushing towards, or why, but it felt _really_ important.

Dodge. Turn. Bend in the road up ahead, and then the bridge. The landscape flashed past too fast for him to see. He pushed himself harder. Oaks. Creek. Grass.

Something flashed in front of him, and he focused in to see it. The mayfly's wings flashed once as the world rippled like water -

And he could feel his arms and legs, moving like they did when he was just jogging, holding back to be like everyone else. The mayfly's wings beat in slow motion as he flew past it.

No, _everything_ was in slow motion. The grass was bent in mid-ripple in the shockwave behind him. Dust from where his feet landed rose like distant smoke. A bird above him was frozen in mid-flap.

No, again. The world was doing what it normally did. _He_ was sped up - his mind and his vision were as fast as his body. He didn't have to plot out the road ahead, plan for his turns ahead of time; he could just see them and react. He wasn't just running fast; he _was_ fast, he was _living_ fast.

Was this a good idea? Was he living several long minutes in the fraction of a second this was taking for everyone else? How much fuel was his body burning; was it more than when he was just running?

Was he going to be able to slow back down? That was the more important question, there. Maybe if he stopped running, it would go back to normal? He skidded to a halt; his dust cloud passed him by, drifting.

The bird reached the bottom of its wing-flap and started to swing back up, achingly slowly.

"Uh-oh," he whispered. He wasn't sure he could explain _this_ to Mom. Would she even be able to hear him at this speed? He might have to write things down just to talk to people. That would _suck_. He looked around, frantically, just as another bug drifted past - a dragonfly, this time.

He watched its wings, beating steadily up and down, like the pendulum of a big clock. "Come on," he whispered. "Speed up." He lifted his head, wishing for the wind to come back.

The dragonfly banked, turned, and wove around him. It brushed his arm -

And suddenly it was whirring again, its wings a blur. It ducked around a bramble and out of sight as the grass rippled wildly. He heaved a sigh of relief.

Now that he wasn't scared, he had time to start getting excited. Dad was going to be proud of him. Dash grinned; he couldn't wait to tell Violet about this, either - she was the one going on about finding creative ways to use their powers. "Think fast!" he crowed to himself, punching the air, and shot off down the trail again.


End file.
